Category: Welcome

The full name of our library is the Eda (no “n”) Kuhn Loeb Music Library – not to be confused with the Frances Loeb Library at the Graduate School of Design or the Loeb Drama Center – and we are often asked about our namesake. Unfortunately, we do not have a picture, but we can tell you who she was:

Eda Kuhn Loeb was born to Solomon and Regina Kuhn, members of a prominent merchant and investment banking family in Cincinnati in 1867. Largely at the prompting of her aunt Betty, the firm, Kuhn Loeb, moved to New York. There the Kuhns and the Loebs moved in the same social and business circles as the Warburgs and other prominent German Jewish banking and investment families. Eda married her cousin, Morris Loeb, in 1895 and Morris became a renowned (and rather eccentric) chemist who taught at Columbia University. Eda became an active philanthropist and spent her life in the lively social and highly musical circles of Kuhns, Loebs, Warburgs and Guggenheims in New York, colorfully described in Stephen Birmingham’s Our Crowd. Her husband died in 1912. Eda never remarried. She was clearly close to her multitude of nieces and nephews. At her death in 1951, she left generous donations to hospitals, colleges, and universities (including Harvard), and the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, which houses a special collection of rare editions of books illustrated by artists (Loeb Collection), leaving the remainder of her estate to her great-nephew, cellist Gerald Warburg. Warburg used this money to fund the construction of the Music Library at Harvard in 1956 which was then named in her honor.

NB One of Eda’s brothers-in-law was James Loeb who was instrumental in funding the construction of Paine Hall and who also established the Loeb Classical Library series of books.

Read more about the history of our library. We thank the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County for this information.

This blog is intended to give you a glimpse into the collections of the Loeb Music Library, Harvard University’s main repository for music materials. Over the months and years to come, we will be selecting items to showcase the Music Library’s collections and services: from chant to hip hop, composers’ manuscript scores to streaming audio recordings, the library collects widely across the spectrum of musical expression. We hope that you will find one thing – or many things – to intrigue you.

Special thanks is due to the many members of the library’s staff who have drawn attention to new acquisitions, written blog entries, and shared their enthusiasm about new recordings, favorite operas, archival collections, and much more.

Do you have comments or more questions about one of the featured items? Please share them with us; we look forward to hearing from you!